These firms reveal their monitoring activities only selectively. Sitting between consumers and providers of services, however, sharing economy firms have a unique capacity to monitor and nudge all participants-including people whose livelihoods may depend on the platform. This Essay, coauthored by a law professor and a technology ethnographer who studies work, labor, and technology, furnishes such a critique and proposes a meaningful response through updates to consumer protection law.Ĭommercial firms have long used what they know about consumers to shape their behavior and maximize profits. Missing from the literature, however, is a fundamental critique of the sharing economy grounded in asymmetries of information and power. This creates economic and other value but raises concerns around racial bias, safety, and fairness to competitors and workers that legal scholarship has begun to address.

Sharing economy firms such as Uber and Airbnb facilitate trusted transactions between strangers on digital platforms.

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